Ahead of The Violators’ forthcoming North American tour, including a night at Central Park Summerstage with Dinosaur Jr. and Cate Le Bon, Kurt Vile has announced three additional dates alongside Dinosaur Jr. slated for November of this year. A full list of Vile’s upcoming tour dates is below, new dates in bold are on sale at 10am local time this Friday July 12th.
Car Seat Headrest have released the final installment of I Haven’t Done Shit This Year, a three-part documentary on the band in partnership with TIDAL. The documentary, available to members and non-members of TIDAL alike, is titled Working In Progress, offering a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse as the band work in the studio, practice room and live on stage on new song ‘Stop Lying to Me’, slated for a forthcoming Car Seat Headrest album.
Speaking to TIDAL on the documentary and new song, Will Toledo says “I think the plan is for it to be on the next record, but it really is still a work in progress. It’s stitched together in a video from various sessions; I’m still really not sure what the final piece is going to look like. I’ve really been thinking it over and changing stuff that could be better.” Read the full interview and watch parts 1 & 2 of the documentary here.
‘Days of the Bagnold Summer’ began life as a 2012 award-winning graphic novel by Joff Winterhart, was turned into a feature film and the directorial debut of Simon Bird (“The Inbetweeners”, “Friday Night Dinner”), and is now a wonderful, rich, bittersweet, and warmly welcoming original soundtrack album by Belle and Sebastian, to be released September 13.
The announcement arrives with first single “Sister Buddha’” and its accompanying video (above).. The anthemic song is led by shards of melodic guitar and Stuart Murdoch’s compassionate lyrics and soaring vocals, telling of a protagonist in search of an escape from “the thrills, the pills, the circus ring” of daily life, brimming with a message of inner strength and solidarity.
‘Days Of The Bagnold Summer’ features eleven brand new Belle and Sebastian songs, as well as re-recorded versions of classics “Get Me Away From Here I’m Dying,” originally appearing on 1996’s If You’re Feeling Sinister, and “I Know Where The Summer Goes,” from 1998’s ‘This Is Just a Modern Rock Song’ EP.
‘Days Of The Bagnold Summer’ is set for release in 2020 and features Monica Dolan, Earl Cave, Rob Brydon, Alice Lowe, Tamsin Greig and Elliot Speller-Gillot. It’s a tender, touching and acutely observed coming-of-age story, which tells of a heavy-metal-loving teenager’s holiday plans falling through at the last minute, leading to him having to spend the summer with the person who annoys him most in the world: his mum. The film is set for release in 2020.
‘Days of the Bagnold Summer’ is the latest outside-the-box accomplishment from storied Glasgow 6-piece Belle and Sebastian, comprised of Stuart Murdoch, Stevie Jackson, Sarah Martin, Chris Geddes, Richard Colburn, Dave McGowan, and Bobby Kildea. The last two years have seen them go against conventional practice by releasing a trilogy of EPs to some of the best reviews of their career, and launch and curate their own four-day music festival at sea in The Boaty Weekender, continuing the individualist streak that has characterized them from day one.
Did Stuart Murdoch, Belle and Sebastian’s lead singer and songwriter, know the comic book before Bird, a longtime fan, approached the band to write the soundtrack? “No, I didn’t,” he admits. “But its style and its atmosphere set me off straight away. I read it on a Friday, and by Monday I pretty much had all my ideas lined up. What was great was that Simon hadn’t shot anything then.” He laughs. “You want to get in early, because that way you can start having late night conversations with the director about The Graduate, or whatever. We all have fantasies about those great movies of the Sixties and the Seventies. If you going to get involved with a project like this, you want to do it right.”
Interspersing some of their most casually gorgeous songs in recent memory with wildly transportal instrumentals, ‘Days of the Bagnold Summer’ is something of a scenic detour from the band’s recent work, largely exchanging the funk, soul and psych of the How To Solve Our Human Problems triptych for more pastoral and acoustic textures. Ones that make lyrical use of strings, French horn, banjo and the occasional trumpet.
Some inspiration may have stemmed from revisiting past plains: “‘Get Me Away From Here I’m Dying’ is a song from our second LP [the seminal If You’re Feeling Sinister from 1996],” says Murdoch. “Simon was adamant he wanted to use it. He’s a proper fan of the group.” The former was re-recorded for the soundtrack along with another B&S classic, “I Know Where The Summer Goes,” originally appearing on 1998 EP This Is Just A Modern Rock Song. Bird also went for a song called “Safety Valve,” (“I wrote a song to you/ I poured my soul in it/ now I’m feeling flat/ I want my soul back”), not knowing he’d stumbled upon Belle and Sebastian collector’s gold dust. “That one’s ancient,” says Murdoch. “It predates the band; it’s maybe 25 years old. The only time I can remember ever playing it was in a coffee shop with a friend of mine, and people scratching their heads. There was only a verse and a chorus, so I went back to it, and revised the words. It’s a simple song about being over-reliant on a particular person – probably my girlfriend at the time. But it seems to work okay here, too.”
The single “Sister Buddha” serves as a loose ‘theme’, appearing at the beginning and towards the end of the album. While not originally written for the film, it struck a chord with Bird: “It just came from my present interest in Buddhism. Simon picked up on it, wanting to have something uplifting at the end of movie, and we were happy for him to have it”.
Another new track, written by Murdoch specifically for the film this time, is “Did The Day Go Just Like You Wanted?” (“Did the day go just like you wanted?/ Or did you hold on with your fingernails?”). “That came out so quickly. It’s based on the relationship between the mum and the son. I guess I used my own experience a bit, feeling it: the situation they are in.”
The brief and spacious “Another Day, Another Night” (“Another day, another night/ I spend my life not-thinking about you”) was written by Sarah Martin. “In the screenplay, the mum is a richer character than in the book, and I was taken by that,” she says. “This is really her song: she doesn’t have much of a facade; she’s not robust. There’s a point when she thinks about an old boyfriend, and her whole past, with all its regrets, suddenly opens up before her. I love her character.”
“Jill Pole,” an instrumental waltz of windswept harmonica and violin, contributes an almost prairie-like expanse and melancholy, while the baroque-tinged “We Were Never Glorious” draws down the curtain with wistful clarinet and snippets of dialogue from the film.
Is releasing a soundtrack a different prospect from releasing a regular album? Would a Belle and Sebastian fan notice the difference if they didn’t know? “Everything we do that becomes an album is a big deal for us,” says Murdoch. “We’re quietly pleased with how the collaboration went, but the truth is that you don’t know what’s going to happen when it goes out into the world, and people hear it.” Martin thinks it is slightly different from other records they’ve put out. “It’s more consistent, probably, than most of our albums. Soundtracks are a deeper cut. They’re not a big pop statement.” But is making music for film that different than making it for a listener? “The whole thing with music is to make a good moment better,” Murdoch says. “Deeper, more thrilling, more heartfelt.” – Rachel Cooke
Belle and Sebastian on tour :
Tuesday, July 2 The Leadmill, Sheffield UK (SOLD OUT)
Wednesday, July 3 Albert Hall, Manchester UK (SOLD OUT)
Thursday, July 4 O2 Academy, Oxford UK (SOLD OUT)/
Stephen Malkmus will be sharing records from his personal collection tonight on SiriusXMU in the vein of’Groove Denied’. Presumably he’s playing whatever he wants, however.
Tune in on channel 35 or listen online at 6pm easter. The program will be replayed at 6pm pacific.
Stephen Malkmus on tour (dates in bold on sale July 13) :
Friday, September 13 CCA, Glasgow UK
Saturday, September 14 Whelan’s, Dublin IE
Monday, September 16 YES, Manchester UK
Tuesday, September 17 Hare and Hounds, Birmingham UK
Wednesday, September 18 The Moth Club, London UK (Early Show SOLD OUT)
Wednesday, September 18 The Moth Club, London UK (Late Show SOLD OUT)
Friday, September 20 Point Ephemere, Paris FR
Saturday, September 21 De Nijverheid, Utrecht NL
Monday, September 23 Gewölbe, Cologne DE
Tuesday, September 24 Kranhalle, Munich DEThursday, September 26 Burg Schnabel, Berlin DE
Friday, September 27 Santeria Social Club, Milan IT Thursday, November 28, Shangri-la, Osaka JP Friday, November 29, Stream Hall, Tokyo JP
For Yo La Tengo, doing something big to distract from an August 4 Condo Fucks show with 75 Dollar Bill is a considerable challenge, but we long ago learned to doubt the band at our own peril. Along with a plethora of other global dates, Yo La Tengo have confirmed 6 new shows on the West Coast (and, uh, Idaho) with tickets on sale this Friday at 10am local time.
Yo La Tengo on tour (new dates in bold) :
Wednesday, July 3 Yes24 Muv Hall, Seoul KR
Thursday, July 4 Yes24 Muv Hall, Seoul KR
Saturday, July 6 Playtime Festival, Gachuurt Village MN
Wednesday, July 10 TTN, Hong Kong CH
Saturday, July 13 Legacy Live House, Taipei TW
Sunday, August 4 Union Pool, Brooklyn NY (Condo Fucks, Free Day Show) %
August 8-12 The Boaty Weekender, Barcelona ES *
Wednesday, August 14 Brudenell Social Club, Leeds UK
Thursday, August 15 Rescue Rooms, Nottingham UK
Friday, August 16 Green Man Festival, Crickhowell UK
September 13-14, Huichica Festival, Walla Walla WA Monday, September 16 Visual Arts Collective, Garden City ID (No fee tickets available at The Record Exchange) Tuesday, September 17 The State Room, Salt Lake City UT (No fee tickets available at Graywhale) Friday, September 20 El Rey, Los Angeles CA (No fee tickets available at Old Style Guitar Shop) Monday, September 23 The Chapel, San Francisco CA (No fee tickets available at the box office) Tuesday, September 24 The Chapel, San Francisco CA (No fee tickets available at the box office) Wednesday, September 25 The Chapel, San Francisco CA (No fee tickets available at the box office)
Friday, October 11 Barclays Center, Brooklyn NY #
January 18-22, Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky Festival, Riviera Maya MX
% w/ 75 Dollar Bill
* w/ Belle and Sebastian, Arab Strap, Teenage Fanclub, more
In honor of Independence Day, Lucy Dacus has released a new single titled “Forever Half Mast,” . The third installment of her 2019 holiday song series, “Forever Half Mast” follows her Valentine’s Day-inspired “La Vie En Rose” cover and her ode to Mother’s Day and Taurus Season, an original song titled “My Mother & I.” Lucy’s ongoing 2019 singles series will also include tracks tied to Bruce Springsteen’s birthday, Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s, with a physical EP coming in the fall.
In “Forever Half Mast,” the twang of a steel guitar compliments Lucy’s gentle strumming and lends a distinctly ‘American’ sound to the song — yet the lyrics convey an attitude towards her home country that is decidedly more ambivalent. Lucy drew inspiration for the song from her experiences touring in Europe, where she was starkly confronted by the complexities of her American identity, and by what it means to be a proud American in these trying times.
In Lucy’s words, “There is a daily dissonance one endures as an American wherein much of our joy is counterweighted by shame, where much of our pride lives in tandem with injustice and suffering. ‘Forever Half Mast’ is about confronting this unavoidable culpability as an American citizen and consumer. Instead of allowing this guilt to paralyze us, we should try to let it influence us in positive ways.”
Baltimore-based singer/songwriter/guitar wiz Snail Mail, aka Lindsey Jordan, has re-issued the breakout 2016 EP, ‘Habit’, available now digitally, with the 12″ and CD versions available on August 30th. The re-mastered EP contains the six original songs, including the single, “Thinning,” as well as a cover of Lois Maffeo’s “The 2nd Most Beautiful Girl In The World,” an alternative version of which was previously available as an Amazon exclusive.
ICYMI, Snail Mail contributed an original song to EA Games’ latest installment of The Sims, ‘The Sims 4: Living Island,’ which came out last Friday. “Rizbeen” is an original new recording of Snail Mail’s “Pristine,” with the lyrics translated into Simlish (NO REALLY, THAT’S WHAT I WAS ASKED TO TYPE).
“It was really hilarious working with the producer of Lush and trying to be serious the whole time! It came pretty naturally to me for some reason. Maybe i’m a sim.”
Spoon today unleash their first new song since 2017’s acclaimed ‘Hot Thoughts’. “No Bullets Spent” showcases Spoon in full creative forward momentum, with its staccato rhythms and spooky film-noir guitar. The inimitable vocals of magnetic frontman Britt Daniel kicking off at the first note, Spoon’s signature is stamped on the track immediately while another level is achieved in Daniels’ seemingly infinite hot streak as a songwriter. Blending with the percussion wizardry of Spoon co-founder Jim Eno, the song is propelled from the doors of his own Public Hi Fi studio in Austin, TX and is produced by Mark Rankin. Alex Fischel (keyboard) and Gerardo Larios (guitar) add their own dimension to the band whose recent recording sessions point to, perhaps, a forthcoming new album.
“No Bullets Spent” joins classics from the Spoon catalog on ‘Everything Hits at Once: The Best of Spoon’, the greatest hits compilation coming out July 26th. “No Bullets Spent” will also be available as a limited edition 7”, with the ‘A Series of Sneaks’ era rarity “Shake It Off” on the B-side. Limited to a small pressing worldwide, the 7” will be sold exclusively via the Matador and Spoon webstores and on tour with the band this summer. The album’s tracklist (complaints about what songs are missing
can be directed to the Twitter ether) and Spoon’s full list of summer tour dates can be found below the physical and digital artwork, and the Rob Sheffield-penned bio.
How many rock bands from the past 25 years could get away with a greatest-hits album? Spoon stand alone, with a career-spanning retrospective culled from all over their unique songbook. It’s a flawless compilation of their best-known, best-loved tunes, yet it’s still full of
surprises—the only thing you could expect from a band that’s spent their whole career taking people by surprise.
“The idea of doing a best-of came to us a couple times,” Britt Daniel says. “First I wasn’t sure how I felt about it but at some point I remembered that when I got my first Cure record it was ‘Standing on a Beach’. When I got my first New Order record, it was ‘Substance’. That was how I met those bands, and I moved backwards from there but I still listen to those comps. I
love a greatest hits LP when it’s done well. It can be a thing unto itself.”
If you were the betting type in 1996, and you were taking odds on which bands would still be on top of their game in 2019—still thriving, creating, evolving, sitting on top of a catalog so rich it could produce a compilation like this—it’s safe to say you could have bought a house betting a quarter on Spoon. They did not seem the likeliest band to make history. Yet they’ve achieved this by refusing to concede a thing to fashion, refusing to pander, declining to repeat themselves, resisting the impulse to play it safe. When they dropped ‘Kill the Moonlight’ in 2002, it already seemed bizarre this underdog band had turned out to be so freakishly prolific and creative. But Spoon were just getting started. They have kept going their own way, moving past their original blueprint and building something new one album at a time.
When you hear Spoon has a greatest-hits record, you instantly think of your pet favorites. Every fan would assemble a totally different lineup—that’s the beauty of it. They’ve built the kind of ridiculously vast catalog where people love to argue for hours over their favorite highlights. Are you a ‘Girls Can Tell’ diehard or a ‘Transference’ cultist? Do you prefer ‘Gimme
Fiction’ or ‘Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga’? ‘Hot Thoughts’? ‘They Want My Soul’?
Certain artists like Al Green, Blondie or Creedence spend years making individual albums that stand up as fully realized works of art—but they spawn a perfect greatest-hits record that makes its own statement. That’s the classic level Spoon are on here. So how did this complex and diverse string of albums boil down to one disc? “Honestly, it was a struggle,”
Daniel says. “I was listening to the old records and jotting down the songs—if you wanna turn the volume up, that’s a good sign. The list really got whittled down, so these are the best. ‘I Summon You’ was never a huge song, wasn’t for the radio, but it had to be on there. It’s one of the best things we’ve done. I wanted to represent ‘Transference’, even though it’s not really a ‘hit’ type of album—‘Got Nuffin’ was the closest thing. It did get to a point where I started feeling like, ‘We gotta represent this album in some way, we’ve gotta represent this change in some way.’ ‘Everything Hits at Once’ was a turning point for us—a minimal new wave soul type of rock song.’”
That’s part of what makes this a classic greatest-hits album—we will keep arguing over the selections for years to come. “It’s a small collection trying to cover a lot of years, but I hope it does what ‘The Singles’ record by the Pretenders or ‘Hot Rocks’ did for me—cover a lot of ground and then if you want to find out more, you can find out more.” It’s a conversation starter, like any great group’s best-of should be. But it’s also a map to the work of a band that’s still full of surprises—and more yet to come. – Rob Sheffield
Having released one of the most critically acclaimed albums of 2019 in ‘The Unseen In Between’, Brooklyn-based songwriteSteve Gunn today shares two new non-album songs, “Be Still Moon” and “Shrunken Heads.”
Recorded during the sessions that yielded ‘The Unseen In Between’, “Be Still Moon” is a swaying acoustic waltz that showcases Gunn’s melodic fretwork, while “Shrunken Heads” sets a rhythmic call-and-response refrain against kaleidoscopic country guitars. While they didn’t make sense with the distinct ebb and flow of the album, taken on their own, the two tracks are as spellbinding an illustration of Gunn’s arresting songcraft as any.
Saturday, July 6 Pointu Festival, Corniche des Iles FR
July 11-14 Winnipeg Folk Festival, Winnipeg MB %
Wednesday, July 24 Port City Music Hall, Portland ME !
Thursday, July 25 3S Artspace, Portsmouth NH !
Saturday, July 27 ArtsRiot, Burlington VT !
Sunday, July 28 Bar Le ‘Ritz’ P.D.B., Montreal QC !
Tuesday, July 30 The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto ON
Wednesday, July 31 Club Cafe, Pittsburgh PA
Friday, August 2 Johnny Brenda’s Philadelphia PA +
Saturday, August 3 The Bell House Outpost at Industry City, Brooklyn NY ^
Saturday, August 24 Merleyn, Nijmegen NL
Sunday, August 25 Cabaret Vert Festival, Charleville Mezieres FR
Monday, August 26 Patterns, Brighton UK
Tuesday, August 27 Bodega, Nottingham UK
Wednesday, August 28 Stereo, Glasgow UK
Thursday, August 29 Exchange, Bristol UK
Friday, August 30 End of the Road, Dorset UK
Saturday, August 31 OLT, Antwerp BE *
Sunday, September 1 Sidecar, Barcelona ES
Monday, September 2 Kafe Antzokia, Bilbao ES
Tuesday, September 3 Sala 0, Madrid ES
Wednesday, September 4 ZDB, Lisbon PT
Friday, September 6 Zonnehuis, Amsterdam NL
Saturday, September 7 Misty Fields, Asten-Heusden NL
Sunday, September 8 Brotfabrik, Frankfurt DE
Monday, September 9 Bumann & Sohn, Köln DE
Tuesday, September 10 Lido, Berlin DE
Wednesday, September 11 Trafo, DE
Thursday, September 12 Druckluft, Oberhausen DE
Friday, September 13 Helling, Utrecht NL
Saturday, September 14 Leffingeleuren, Leffing BE
Monday, September 16 Lost Lane, Dublin IE %
Tuesday, September 17 Omeara, London UK %
Thursday, September 19 Kuudes Linja, Helsinki FI %
Monday, September 23 Salon, Istanbul TR %
Friday, October 18 Lambert’s, Austin TX % Sunday, October 20 Duet Jazz (The Bob Dylan Center Presents: An Evening with Steve Gunn, Tulsa OK Wednesday, October 23 Showbox Theater, Seattle WA @%
Thursday, October 24 Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver BC @%
Friday, October 25 Wild Buffalo, Bellingham WA @%
Saturday, October 26 Wonder Ballroom, Portland OR @%
Monday, October 28 Slim’s, San Francisco CA @%
Tuesday, October 29 Slim’s, San Francisco CA @%
Wednesday, October 30 Slim’s, San Francisco CA @%
! w/ Bill MacKay
+ w/ Nace-Truscinski Duo
^ w/ Hand Habits
* w/ John Prine
% indicates solo performance
@ w/ Dinosaur Jr.
Tracklist
1. Cosmic Hero (Live at the Tramshed, Cardiff, Wales)
2. Fill In The Blank (Live at Newport Music Hall, Columbus, OH)
3. Drugs With Friends (Live at La Lune des Pirates, Amiens, France)
4. Bodys (Live at La Lune des Pirates, Amiens, France)
5. Cute Thing (Live at O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, England)
6. Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales (Live at O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, England)
7. Destroyed By Hippie Powers (Live at the Crystal Ballroom, Portland, OR)
8. Ivy (live at the Capitol Theater, Olympia, WA)
9. Beach Life-in-Death (Live at Crossroads, KC, Kansas City, MO)
Previously only available as a Record Store Day exclusive 7″, Julien Baker’s first new solo recordings in two years, “Red Door” and “Conversation Piece” can now be heard on all streaming services.
A fan-favorite during live shows, “Red Door” is a lush and atmospheric track driven by Baker’s complex fingerpicking and a hint of slide guitar, her voice soaring as she pleads “set me on fire in the middle of the street / bend my knees, paint the concrete / the color of my bloody knuckles / pulling splinters form the chapel door.” A previously unreleased cut begun during the Turn Out the Lights sessions, “Conversation Piece” is a meditation on loneliness, backed by delicate percussion and chiming guitars.
(‘Commit Yourself Completely’ album sleeve photo by Veronica Anderson)
“Fill In The Blank” (Live at Newport Music Hall, Columbus, OH)
Car Seat Headrest today announces Commit Yourself Completely – a new nine-track live album that will be released only via digital means June 17th. Culled from performances across the UK, US and France, the nine-track album spans material from 2016’s breakout Teens Of Denial and 2018’s reimagined epic Twin Fantasy – as well as the first officially released recording of longtime live staple ‘Ivy’ by Frank Ocean. A filmed version of the performance of ‘Fill In The Blank’ which appears on the album, recorded in Columbus, Ohio, can be seen now above.
“This is a compilation of songs from shows we played in 2018,” says Will Toledo. “We recorded every show we did that year, and I went through about 50 of them to get the final tracklist for this album. This isn’t necessarily the best possible version of each track, but it’s some of the most fun we’ve had on stage. I particularly remember the show we did in the small French town of Amiens, maybe the smallest show we did that year, and how great it felt to be up in people’s faces with everyone plugging in to the music right away. The recordings we made of the shows came out very clean, so rather than try to artificially recreate how it sounded in the different venues night to night, I tried to give the whole album that in-your-face feeling, like we’re playing the songs right in front of you. When you’re onstage with everything happening at once, you never really know what it sounds like in the room anyways; all you know is how the music is feeling. Hopefully this will give you a sense of what these shows felt like.”
A snapshot of the 7-person lineup featuring members of Naked Giants experienced by crowds worldwide over the last two years, Commit Yourself Completely offers a visceral, loose and ebullient take on these much-loved songs, as well as an an incandescent capstone of a formative touring period as Car Seat Headrest readies his next studio album. Musicians featured on the album are Will Toledo (vocals), Seth Dalby (bass), Ethan Ives (guitar, vocals), Andrew Katz (drums, vocals), Grant Mullen (guitar, vocals) Gianni Aiello (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Henry LaVallee (additional percussion).
Photo by Mikeal Beland
Tracklist
1. Cosmic Hero (Live at the Tramshed, Cardiff, Wales)
2. Fill In The Blank (Live at Newport Music Hall, Columbus, OH)
3. Drugs With Friends (Live at La Lune des Pirates, Amiens, France)
4. Bodys (Live at La Lune des Pirates, Amiens, France)
5. Cute Thing (Live at O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, England)
6. Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales (Live at O2 Forum Kentish Town, London, England)
7. Destroyed By Hippie Powers (Live at the Crystal Ballroom, Portland, OR)
8. Ivy (live at the Capitol Theater, Olympia, WA)
9. Beach Life-in-Death (Live at Crossroads, KC, Kansas City, MO)
Sonic Youth’s live LP, ‘Battery Park, NYC: July 4, 2008’ is available today on LP and via all streaming services. In addition, the band’s final studio album and lone recording for Matador, 2009’s ‘The Eternal’, is the subject of a 25% off sale now thru June 14 (LP or download). ‘The Eternal’ or ‘Battery Park’ orders from the Matador Store (US/UK/EU customers only) receive a Matador Revisionist History slipmat while supplies last.
Steve Gunn will be supporting Dinosaur Jr. on 7 West Coast dates this October including a 3 night stand at San Francisco’s Slim’s. Tickets go on sale this Friday at 10am pacific time.
Saturday, July 6 Pointu Festival, Corniche des Iles FR
July 11-14 Winnipeg Folk Festival, Winnipeg MB %
Wednesday, July 24 Port City Music Hall, Portland ME !
Thursday, July 25 3S Artspace, Portsmouth NH !
Saturday, July 27 ArtsRiot, Burlington VT !
Sunday, July 28 Bar Le ‘Ritz’ P.D.B., Montreal QC !
Tuesday, July 30 The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto ON
Wednesday, July 31 Club Cafe, Pittsburgh PA
Friday, August 2 Johnny Brenda’s Philadelphia PA +
Saturday, August 3 The Bell House Outpost at Industry City, Brooklyn NY ^
Saturday, August 24 Merleyn, Nijmegen NL
Sunday, August 25 Cabaret Vert Festival, Charleville Mezieres FR
Monday, August 26 Patterns, Brighton UK
Tuesday, August 27 Bodega, Nottingham UK
Wednesday, August 28 Stereo, Glasgow UK
Thursday, August 29 Exchange, Bristol UK
Friday, August 30 End of the Road, Dorset UK
Saturday, August 31 OLT, Antwerp BE *
Sunday, September 1 Sidecar, Barcelona ES
Monday, September 2 Kafe Antzokia, Bilbao ES
Tuesday, September 3 Sala 0, Madrid ES
Wednesday, September 4 ZDB, Lisbon PT
Friday, September 6 Zonnehuis, Amsterdam NL
Saturday, September 7 Misty Fields, Asten-Heusden NL
Sunday, September 8 Brotfabrik, Frankfurt DE
Monday, September 9 Bumann & Sohn, Köln DE
Tuesday, September 10 Lido, Berlin DE
Wednesday, September 11 Trafo, DE
Thursday, September 12 Druckluft, Oberhausen DE
Friday, September 13 Helling, Utrecht NL
Saturday, September 14 Leffingeleuren, Leffing BE
Monday, September 16 Lost Lane, Dublin IE %
Tuesday, September 17 Omeara, London UK %
Thursday, September 19 Kuudes Linja, Helsinki FI %
Monday, September 23 Salon, Istanbul TR % Wednesday, October 23 Showbox Theater, Seattle WA @% Thursday, October 24 Commodore Ballroom, Vancouver BC @%
Friday, October 25 Wild Buffalo, Bellingham WA @% Saturday, October 26 Wonder Ballroom, Portland OR @% Monday, October 28 Slim’s, San Francisco CA @% Tuesday, October 29 Slim’s, San Francisco CA @% Wednesday, October 30 Slim’s, San Francisco CA @%
! w/ Bill MacKay
+ w/ Nace-Truscinski Duo
^ w/ Hand Habits
* w/ John Prine
% indicates solo performance
@ w/ Dinosaur Jr.
Belle and Sebastian have added a NYC show to their summer mini-tour with a Wednesday July 10 date at Brooklyn Steel. There’s a presale tomorrow (Wednesday, June 5) at 10am (code :BELLE2019) and the general sale starts Friday at 10am eastern time.
Steve Gunn’s recent session for Seattle’s KEXP consisting of “Vagabond”, “Chance”, “Luciano”, and “Morning Is Mended” from the critically acclaimed ‘The Unseen In Between’ is now available for viewing (see above).
On June 7, we’ll be reissuing Sonic Youth’s ‘Battery Park, NYC: July 4, 2008’. Initially sold as a bonus item alongside the 2009 release of the band’s final album, ‘The Eternal’, the live recording will now be available on streaming services and as a stand-alone physical package for the first time ever. Culled from their show at Battery Park’s River To River Festival (and broadcast live on WFMU), the setlist spans the band’s 30-year career.
The live version of “Bull In The Heather” is now available to stream HERE.
Coinciding with the full release of the live album on June 7th, ‘The Eternal’ will be 25% off on the Matador Store from that date to June 14th.
Orders from the Matador Store include a Matador Records Revisionist History Slipmat (while supplies last).
Tracklist
01 She Is Not Alone
02 The Sprawl
03 World Looks Red
04 Jams Run Free
05 Hey Joni
06 The Wonder
07 Hyperstation
08 Bull In The Heather
09 100%
10 Making The Nature Scene
Interpol today release a new 5 song EP, ‘A Fine Mess’, including the sought-after live favorite “Real Life,” first heard during the band’s ‘Turn On The Bright Lights’ 15th anniversary tour in 2017. Recorded during time spent in upstate New York with Dave Fridmann, the five songs that make up ‘A Fine Mess’ gradually emerged as a body of work with a narrative and flow unto itself. The title track, “Fine Mess,” then received further production from Kaines & Tom A.D. and mixing from Claudius Mittendorfer, who had first worked with Interpol as engineer on ‘Our Love To Admire’. The resulting set is a living, breathing postcard from the band to their fans as they tour the world throughout 2019, and a linear continuation of the visceral and contagious energy set loose with ‘Marauder’.
Echoing its title, the artwork for ‘A Fine Mess’ is illustrated by a series of lost images, recovered from an abandoned police station in Detroit, MI. In a crumbling evidence room – amongst the rubble – an undeveloped roll of film, dated “1-20-96”, featured latent images of a breaking and entering scene, the rooms in chaos.
From the beguiling refrain of the title track, to the soulful topsy-turvy of “No Big Deal,” cathartic chorus of long sought-after live favourite “Real Life,” anthemic swell of “The Weekend,” and angular shades of “Thrones,” ‘A Fine Mess’ is a bracing and distinct entry in Interpol’s oeuvre.
This morning Steve Gunn has confirmed a new August/September European tour in support of the critically acclaimed ‘The Unseen In Between’, accompanied by Anton Coene’s footage of the album’s standout “Morning Is Mended”, filmed in the former monestary, Caermersklooster.
